The jury at Ipswich Crown Court took an hour to reach unanimous not guilty verdicts on Dale Carter of Ruben Walk, Earls Colne, who had denied inflicting grievous bodily harm on April and Ashleigh Charlesworth in April 2021 by squirting fuel on to a tabletop heater. Earlier in his closing speech to the jury, defence barrister, Michael Epstein described what happened as a "horrible accident". He said the prosecution accepted that Carter hadn't set out to deliberately cause the victims' injuries but had acted recklessly. April, a former Colchester Institute student, suffered burns to her neck, hands and face after the fuel bottle exploded. The court heard that the night in question was the cousins’ first night out after the Covid lockdown and they and the rest of the group were sitting at tables in the pub car park.